I really fear we have a whole generation of kids who haven’t developed resilience. Some of that is the screen culture; some is the codependent parenting.
It’s not as simple as that, though. It’s not just individual kids in isolation, and it’s often not that specific a causation. This lack of resilience results from a lot of different things. Some is due to how few kids have jobs. Many don’t have local friends because so many schools are magnets, charters or privates rather than community-based so they don’t learn to hang out in person. People don’t hang around malls like they did 30 years ago. Structured activities like club sports devour even more free time. A lot of kids are opting out of dating, or even asking another individual to a dance. In general there are fewer opportunities to be with others in IRL (in real life) so many kids are just not very good at it. Atop that there’s so much aversion to risk/hurt/rejection that taking the soft route to avoid negatives is an obvious outcome. It’s a rough time to be growing up.
Ah, yes. Those emotional women ruin everything. This article is quite the eye opener, providing insight into a particular mindset that prefers women go back to their traditional roles.
The Great Feminization is truly unprecedented. Other civilizations have given women the vote, granted them property rights, or let them inherit the thrones of empires. No civilization in human history has ever experimented with letting women control so many vital institutions of our society, from political parties to universities to our largest businesses. Even where women do not hold the top spots, women set the tone in these organizations, such that a male CEO must operate within the limits set by his human resources VP. We assume that these institutions will continue to function under these completely novel circumstances. But what are our grounds for that assumption?
The problem is not that women are less talented than men or even that female modes of interaction are inferior in any objective sense. The problem is that female modes of interaction are not well suited to accomplishing the goals of many major institutions.
Hey, what if we stopped blaming women for ruining the hold men had on everything? What if we focused on figuring out how to help men thrive in a world that has and will continue to have women in leadership roles? If that is even the issue for young men.
Wow, just where to begin with that article (emphasis mine):
I was apprehensive about putting forward the Great Feminization thesis in such a public forum. It is still controversial, even in conservative circles, to say that there are too manywomen in a given field or that women in large numbers can transform institutions beyond recognition in ways that make them cease to function well.
…It is good that people are receptive to the argument, because our window to do something about the Great Feminization is closing.
Just too many unfounded statements and non-sequiturs.
I would rather deal with women in business than men. Btw, I am a man. In 2023 I bought 2 cars in within 3 months from the same dealership. First car a woman was the salesperson. Smooth purchase. Second car woman was not working. Had to deal with this guy. He scumy.
So, another link full of unfounded stereotypes and conjecture about the natural order of things, and how the men have to be in charge or we are all DOOOMED. It might be funny if so many otherwise intelligent people didn’t seem to buy into this bigoted nonsense.
By the way, Andrews mentioned reading an article that “changed the way (she ) look at the world.” The anonymous author of that article is a far right pseudo-intellectual blogger who also advocates for such things as the separation of races. This ought to give some idea of where these people are coming from.
David French rationally deconstructs the nonsense in that article in this NYT opinion piece. (Sorry, no gift link.) I don’t always agree with French, but he said what needed to be said on this one.
The new right groans under the weight of its nostalgia for a nation that did not exist. It pines for a story that vindicates its reactionary rage. And in writing about a false enemy that destroyed a fake past, Andrews and the many other architects of the right-wing gender wars are committing the very sins they attribute to the enemies they detest.
Their emotions have gotten the best of them. In the name of masculine toughness, their fear and insecurity lead them astray.
ETA: This slant on the discussion probably belongs in the Politics forum, but I don’t participate there, so I won’t be surprised if it gets deleted or moved.
I really hope the article you’ve linked doesn’t cause your post to be moved to the Politics thread because there’s no way to rationally discuss the situation with men under 35 without addressing the political forces exerting influence on this particular group.
Here is another quote from the same article.
When you encounter the young men of the new right — their faces all too often twisted in rage — “rational” is often not the first word that comes to mind.
Andrews vastly understates the role of emotion in masculinity. We are not coldly rational creatures. Many of the greatest achievements of civilization are rooted in part in the emotions of men — from the magnificent music of the greatest composers to the soaring words of our nation’s founding fathers.
At the same time, many of the world’s greatest horrors, past and present, are rooted in male emotion. The rage and fury of war have bathed the world in blood. Hatred fosters discrimination. Greed leads to exploitation.
In our community we’ve just had another young man take his own life. This makes 3 in a 12 month period that I’m aware of. Two hs students and one in his early 20’s. I don’t have answers, but this is extremely concerning to our community. By all accounts this young man was thriving, except that he so obviously wasn’t. So yes, young men are struggling.